Thursday, 16 June 2011

thank you for all of your thoughts on who should come away with us to France soon, the jury is still out!

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I have revisited my bird design here and have been screen printing onto fabric, adding Suffolk Puffs and lots of embroidery, as ususal...

I am happy with the free machine embroidery I used with this...the black stitching picks up the screen printed bird. I have used hand embroidery too.

I shall be using this design a little more in the future...I like making it.

Running the machine over the old, worn patchwork is really pleasing.

Talking of Suffolk Puffs, I bought these from gertie They are very old, gently faded, with the most lovely prints and I feel so happy to have these...pop over to Gertie if you can...she is the kindest, sweet lady and has just relocated, with her family to Portscatho, Cornwall from Germany, a huge undertaking for them. It's great having them here.

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I also had a commission to make recently, for another lovely lady Fee, who celebrated a special birthday, her husband is a 'one of a kind' and I have been very happy to be a small part of the celebrations. Fee lost her Daddy when she was small and I was asked to incorporate a copy of a photo of him. Fee also has a 'thang' for shoes. She has the most beautiful and happy blog, I urge you to pop over when you have a mo.

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Moving on and a very odd twist of subject. We are very priviledged to house a maternity roost of Pipistrelle bats every late Spring. We sometimes have the odd bat fly around a room but normally they do not bother us and we certainly do not bother them. A few years ago, however, the weather had been dreadful and many of the babies were abandoned and started dropping through the cracks around the loft door...fortunately, I made a very good contact, a local couple who hand rear orphaned bats staffordshirebatsgroup...a few of the babies were bought back to us a few weeks later and reintroduced to their fellow Bat kind.

Well, the night before last, 10pm to be precise, I heard the current husband announce 'oh spiffing', which was very restrained! I just knew it would be a Bat, as we had counted 90 mums out, watching from the garden, the evening before (90 mums + 90 babies = 200 or so Bats) and I knew we would, at sometime, have an escapee. Sure enough, there was a baby hanging from the loft door, oh heck.Below, next morning, when I opened loft hatch,

three day old Pipistrelle.

I gave 'Hammer' a drink of water from a cotton wool bud...

I was on the phone to the Bat group before you could say Christopher Lee. Thankfully, they were able to take over and took 'Hammer' off my hands. Thank heavens for dedicated and passionate Bat loving rearing folk.

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Well, we are off to the beautiful Loire Valley soon and I shall say au revoir.

Tuesday, 14 June 2011

Well, here in the land of Pie Country of Staffordshire, there has been some rather troublesome goings on.

Dixie, One Eyed Wonkey and Wonkey Donkey found out by pure chance that there had been a celebration of the first day of Summer, in the Pie Country of Central California, where there is a smell of brine in the air, warm sunshine, flowers and birds... farmerjulie , donkey, hedgehog and all their friends gathered, to eat delicious home baked pies to celebrate the coming of Summer...and to be honest with you,

my three donkeys felt left out and told me so...

So I quickly rustled up a party table for them, spread with the prettiest of patchwork, the sweetest plate in all the world, bedecked with Violas and party flower hats...

but see, no hand baked pie for this hungry threesome, what is a person to do in such circumstances? (Answer: run to the local Spar and buy a packet of French Fancies) Pretty cakes, sickly sweet, full of E numbers and not quite in the spirit of the magnificent farm party over the sea and a bit, but .....

here they are, tucking into their cake...

Wonkey decided to change his hat to match the cake....

Then without any kind of warning, in comes Mechanical Mike, most put out that he was not invited to the first day of Summer Pie/French Fancy party, pushed Wonkey roughly out of the way, pinched his hat and helped himself to the cake, tut tut...

Dixie and One Eyed Wonkey were very upset and told him so, but you know how monkeys can be when they decide to get upto monkey business.

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Now I have a dilemma....my sister in law, who lives in Australia, has arranged for many family members to meet up and stay in the Loire Valley, France soon, which we are looking forward to very much....but I am worried sick as to whom I should asked to accompany us. Wonkey Donkey came with us to Kent for the seaside air, but who should come to France? Should it be One eyed Wonkey's turn or Dixie Donkey?

I may have to toss a coin.

Mechanical Mike will certainly not be asked after his dreadful and anti-social behaviour of today.

Any help in this matter would be most welcome.All of this aside, happy summertime to all our dear friends near and far.

Sunday, 12 June 2011

Goodness me there has been a debate over at at my friend Niki's blog nostalgiaatthestonehouse Niki raises the worrying issues of small business High Street shop decline, amongst other points.

The girl works so hard at keeping her beautiful shop going in very difficult times, she must be exhausted from trying to stock and run the business. She is so talented and makes beautiful bags and dolls too, aswell as having the most gorgeous home...

I really don't know how she does it.

Hard economic times faced by us all, so to me, it is such a shame that some people have to leave upsetting comments and not have the bottle to put a name to their point of view.

If you have the time to read Niki's post and comments, I am sure you will join with me in congratulating her in being hard working and tenacious in keeping her wonderful business alive, for us all to enjoy and feel inspired by, in the flesh at Shepton Mallet and/or online.

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I think I am going to have to blog more regularly, as I seem to be losing the plot. I can't keep tally of what I have uploaded, where I have stored my pics, what pics I have taken or not...what a bloody tizz I've been in...so I'm going to make life simpler and post more regualrly, if you will visit me of course!

Is it me????

Here are a few of the 'makes' from the past week or two, hope you like them...

Bunny Brooch...

Dirk the Dog brooch...

That wonderful young upper torso does not, I'm afraid, belong to me..... showing two shoulder bags,